Personalization and customization are big trends in many industries currently. Consumers are getting used to the idea of products tailor-made for them, and due to the increasing demand, it is becoming a reality in various sectors. Companies are discovering they can further ensure their customers’ loyalty and engagement by providing them with personalized solutions.

Personalized nutrition is an approach that is in high demand with consumers. In most cases, it is related to offering selected micronutrient combinations with individual dosages according to various needs. The level of personalization may begin with simple differentiation at the level of gender (male vs. female) or age group (teens vs 50+, etc.) and end with products that provide a truly personalized micronutrient cocktail based on individual genome or gut microbiome analyses. All along this scale, a landscape of products personalized for individual eating habits, activity levels, biomarkers, or single genes is evolving.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All
The basis of personalized nutrition is the finding that the physiological response to dietary changes or supplementation is highly variable among individuals, and that what is good for one is not always good for another. Provided that the industry is able to develop appropriate products, the introduction of personalized nutrition into the marketplace will certainly improve consumer health and well-being.

The basic approach to personalization can be divided into three steps: 1) assessing individual requirements for nutrients by a certain technology, 2) tailoring nutritional products to the identified need, and 3) proving the efficacy of the regimen after a certain period of time.

Assessing individual needs may be achieved in several ways, such as through dedicated apps, analytical devices, or specific laboratory methods. These means may not be available to all manufacturers. Therefore, in order to develop meaningful products, different industry sectors should collaborate and pool their various brands of expertise. Many companies, from start-ups to multi-nationals, invest in research on personalized nutrition. Most of the products currently on the market have been developed by start-up companies that are in some cases fueled by interdisciplinary cooperation in scientific hubs.

Also, manufacturing personalized products is often at odds with the usual industrial processes that are optimized for producing high quantities of the same products rather than small batches of many different product types based on individualized compositions. Currently, solutions are not yet obvious, but foundations of consortia and networks may enable the industry to adapt to the new requirements.

The New Era of Nutrition
Currently, nutritional recommendations, safety considerations, and related regulations are based on requirements of the average healthy population, differentiated in terms of life stage or gender. These values were established many years before potential individual requirements were studied. Regulators require a certain dosing range of individual micronutrients as well as maximum levels, which may be in conflict with the concept of personalization. Although the EU is preparing for the new era of nutrition toward 2050, the regulatory environment is still far away from establishing regulations that are satisfactory for the concept of personalized products. Experienced consultancies such as analyze & realize GmbH can help food business operators navigate the regulatory waters such as they are now.

Furthermore, technologies such as wearables and apps must be validated and regulated to make sure that data acquisition and transfer into nutritional recommendations is solid. Some medical apps and self-tests are considered medical devices and need to be validated accordingly. However, there is still a large grey area. Many apps on the market are not certified as medical devices, and thus their quality remains indeterminate.

Another regulatory topic is the protection of consumer data. Consumers want to be sure their health data stored in “clouds” is not misused, for example, by health insurance companies or their employers. The new EU regulation on general data protection (EU) 2016/679 will impose stricter rules on data protection, and it also foresees harsh penalties in case of non-compliance. These and many other topics need to be addressed in order to increase consumer trust in personalized nutrition.

From today’s perspective, because of the issues outlined here, a significant leap forward in personalized nutrition in the near future is not yet foreseeable. However, the concept will develop further, and as always in the area of disruptive innovation, unexpected solutions may hit the ground and surprise everyone. The secret sauce may lie in the power of smart collaboration models between start-ups and established companies. The main driver and ultimate goal will certainly be a perceived and sustained benefit
for consumers.

Joerg Gruenwald
analyze & realize ag

Dr. Joerg Gruenwald is co-founder of analyze & realize GmbH, a specialized business consulting company and CRO in the fields of nutraceuticals, dietary supplements, herbals and functional food, and author of the PDR for Herbal Medicines. He can be reached at analyze & realize GmbH, Waldseeweg 6, 13467 Berlin, Germany; +49-30-40008100; E-mail: jgruenwald@a-r.com; Website: www.analyze-realize.com.

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